When no one was looking, I snuck into the TARDIS to change my clothes. She picked out a purple dress. The sleeves were a blue see through material.
Evelina recovered and laughed as Donna put on a purple robe and shawl. She waved me into the room. "You're not supposed to laugh. Thanks for that. What do you think?" Donna pointed at us. "The Goddess Venus."
"Oh, that's sacrilege," she giggled.
"Nice to see you laugh, though. What do you do in old Pompeii, then, girls your age?" Donna asked, "You got mates? Do you go hanging about round the shops? TK Maximus?" I smiled at that.
"I am promised to the Sisterhood for the rest of my life."
I inquired, "Do you get any choice in that?"
"It's not my decision," Evelina answered, "The Sisters chose for me. I have the gift of sight."
"Then what can you see happening tomorrow?" I hit her arm and shook my head, but she ignored me.
"Is tomorrow special?" She asked.
"You tell me," Donna said hopefully, "What do you see?"
The girl closed her eyes briefly before opening them and smiling. "The sun will rise, the sun will set. Nothing special at all."
"Look, don't tell the Doctor I said anything because he'll kill me, but I've got a prophecy too." Evelina immediately covered her eyes with her hands. They had eyes on the back of her hands.
"Donna," I warned, "Don't."
She continued, "Evelina, I'm sorry, but you've got to hear me out. Evelina, can you hear me? Listen."
"There is only one prophecy," Evelina insisted.
"Yes, now stop talking, Donna," I agreed, "You don't know what you're doing."
She ignored me again. "But everything I'm about to say to you is true, I swear. Just listen to me. Tomorrow, that mountain is going to explode. Evelina, please listen. The air is going to fill with ash and rocks, tons and tons of it, and this whole town is going to get buried."
"That's not true."
"I'm sorry. I'm really sorry," she apologized, "But everyone's going to die. Even if you don't believe me, just tell your family to get out of town. Just for one day. Just for tomorrow. But you've got to get out. You've got to leave Pompeii."
Evelina cried, "This is false prophecy!"
"Donna!" I whispered fiercely, "Stop! She's part of Sisterhood. She was communicating with them! Do you know what they do to people who talk like that?" She didn't get the chance to reply when someone grabbed both of us and knocked me out.
When I came to, we were in a temple like building. I was tied to the altar and Donna was tied to a pillar. "This is what they do," I said loudly.
"You have got to be kidding me." Donna struggled against the ropes.
A member of the Sisterhood stood over me with an ornate knife. "The false prophet will surrender both her blood and her breath," she murmured.
I threatened, "I'll surrender you in a minute. Don't you dare."
"You will be silent."
"Listen, sister, you might have eyes on the back of your hands," Donna threatened with me, "But you'll have eyes in the back of your head by the time I've finished with you. Let us go!"
"Sorry, sisters, but scientifically this makes no sense. How do you tell the future?" I demanded.
"Where is your 'science' sense now?" The Sister prodded.
"Well let me tell you something," I whispered, "Science stays while all of this is ridiculed. You're the crazies that believe in things that are the only things that were falsely used to explain science."
The Sister looked even more angry. "This prattling voice will cease forever." She rose the knife high.
"Oh, that'll be the day." The Doctor came out of nowhere.
She hissed, "No man is allowed to enter the Temple of Sibyl."
"Well, that's all right. Just us girls. Do you know, I met the Sibyl once. Yeah, hell of a woman," he rambled casually, "Blimey, she could dance the Tarantella. Nice teeth. Truth be told, I think she had a bit of a thing for me. I said it would never last. She said, 'I know'. Well, she would. You all right there?" The Doctor looked at me on the altar.
I said sarcastically, "You know, I don't think it suits me."
"The dress does." I felt his eyes roam my body.
"Oi!" I reminded, "Eyes front, soldier!"
The Doctor mumbled, "Can't win with you." He used the sonic screwdriver to cut the ropes, freeing me and Donna. "What magic is this?" The Sister asked.
The Doctor ignored the question, "Let me tell you about the Sibyl, the founder of this religion. She would be ashamed of you. All her wisdom and insight turned sour. Is that how you spread the word, hey? On the blade of a knife?"
"Yes, a knife that now welcomes you." She turned the knife to him, but a raspy voice halted her, "Show me this pair." It was coming from behind a sheer curtain.
"High Priestess, the strangers will defile us," the Sister protested.
"Let me see. These two are different," the High Priestess insisted, "They carry starlight in their wake."
I walked up with the Doctor. "Oh, very perceptive," I noted, "Where do these words of wisdom come from?"
She answered, "The gods whisper to me."
"They've done far more than that," the Doctor noticed from behind the veil, "Might I beg audience? Look upon the High Priestess?" Two Sisters draw it aside to reveal a woman figure made completely of stone.
"Oh, my God. What's happened to you?" Donna asked.
"The heavens have blessed me."
I held my hand out. "If I might?" The High Priestess reached out for me to touch. It was rock, real rock. I asked gently, "Does it hurt?"
She insisted, "It is necessary."
"Who told you that?"
"The voices," The High Priestess stated.
"Is that what's going to happen to Evelina?" Donna demanded, "Is this what's going to happen to all of you?"
The Sister pulled her sleeve up to reveal the stone. "The blessings are manifold."
"They're stone."
"Exactly. The people of Pompeii are turning to stone before the volcano erupts," I recapped, "But why?"
"This word, this image in your mind," High Priestess gazed, "This volcano. What is that?"
"More to the point, why don't you know about it?" The Doctor inquired, "Who are you?"
"High Priestess of the Sibylline."
"No, no, no, no. We're talking to the creature inside you," I corrected, "The thing that's seeding itself into a human body, in the dust, in the lungs, taking over the flesh and turning it into, what?"
"Your knowledge is impossible," the High Priestess gasped.
He said surely, "Oh, but you can read our minds. You know it's not. I demand you tell me who you are."
Her voice changed to a deeper one, "We are awakening."
"The voice of the gods!" They bowed continuously and chanted, "Words of wisdom, words of power."
"Name yourself. Planet of origin," I demanded hurriedly.
"Galactic coordinates," the Doctor joined, "Species designation according to the universal ratification of the Shadow Proclamation."
It continued, "We are rising."
"Tell me your name!" He yelled.
"Pyrovile!" the High Priestess wailed. I flinched at the name. That was not a fun discussion at school.
Donna asked, "What's a Pyrovile?"
"Well, that's a Pyrovile, growing inside her," I gestured, "She's a halfway stage."
"And the breath of a Pyrovile will incinerate you, Doctor." Before she could do anything, the Doctor took out a yellow plastic water pistol. I laughed inwardly about that bloody Jammy Dodger. "I warn you, I'm armed," he instructed, "Donna, get that grill open."
"What for?"
"Just," he gestured exasperatedly, "What are the Pyrovile doing here?"
"We fell from the heavens," she answered, "We fell so far and so fast, we were rendered into dust."
"Right, creatures of stone shattered on impact," I remarked.
"When was that, seventeen years ago?"
"We have slept beneath for thousands of years," the High Priestess said gruffly.
"Okay, so seventeen years ago woke you up, and now you're using human bodies to reconstitute yourselves," the Doctor pieced it together, "But why the psychic powers?"
"We opened their minds and found such gifts."
"Okay, that's fine. So you force yourself inside a human brain, use the latent psychic talent to bond," I rambled, "I get that, I get that, yeah. But seeing the future? That is way beyond psychic. You can see through time. Where does the gift of prophecy come from? Why can't this lot predict a volcano? Why is it being hidden?" The Doctor looked at me, almost as if he was, dare I say it, impressed.
The Sister spoke up, "Sisters, I see into his mind. The weapon is harmless."
We shrugged. "Yeah, but it's got to sting." He squirted the water at the High Priestess. She howled in pain and we quickly went down the grill.
The Doctor helped me in the dress. I landed right in front of him and we looked each other in the eyes. "Was Evelina right? Are you trying to impress me?"
"I don't remember inviting you to my barbecue," I said seriously.
"What?"
"So, why are you all up in my grill?" I turned to Donna. "This way." We started walking off. "Where are we going now?"
I answered cheerfully, "Into the volcano."
She stopped and stated, "No way."
"Yes, way," I joked, "Appian way." The Doctor followed us. I don't think he was used to the girl to not be asking him constant questions.
Instead, Donna directed her questions to me, "But if it's aliens setting off the volcano, doesn't that make it all right for you two to stop it?"
"Still part of history," he insisted before I could answer.
"But I'm history to you. You saved me in 2008," she said, "You saved us all. Why is that different?"
"Some things are fixed, some things are in flux," I repeated, "Pompeii is fixed."
"How do you know which is which?"
The Doctor sighed, "Because that's how we see the universe. Every waking second, we can see what is, what was, what could be, what must not. That's the burden of a Time Lord, Donna. And we're the only two left."
Donna paused before asking, "How many people died?"
"Stop it."
"Celeste, how many people died?" She turned to me instead.
I looked at the Doctor before answering, "Twenty thousand."
"Is that what you can see? All twenty thousand? And you think that's all right, do you?" Something roared in the distance. "They know we're here," the Doctor warned, "Come on."
We ran into an overly hot area of Pyrovile. I breathed, "It's the heart of Vesuvius. We're right inside the mountain."
"There's tons of them."
"What's that thing?" I noticed and took a monocular from the Doctor's pocket to look at what seemed to be a spaceship.
"Oh, you better hurry up and think of something," Donna worried, "Rocky fall's on its way."
"That's how they arrived. Or what's left of it," I mumbled, "Escape pod? Prison ship? Gene bank?"
"But why do they need a volcano?" She pointed out, "Maybe it erupts, and they launch themselves back into space or something?"
He shook his head. "Oh, it's worse than that."
"How could it be worse?" Donna looked behind us. "Doctor, Celeste, it's getting closer."
Lucius with the Pyroviles stood on the other side of the ridge. "Heathens defile us," he announced, "They would desecrate your temple, my lord gods."
"Come on," the Doctor pulled us toward the inner volcano.
"Crush them. Burn them."
Pissed off, I called sarcastically, "You know, I bet you're fun at parties!" A Pyrovile reared up in front of us, so the Doctor squirted it with his water pistol. We ran to the escape pod. Lucius yelled, "There is nowhere to run, Doctor, Lady of the Stars, and daughter of London!"
"Now then, Lucius. My lords Pyrovillian, don't get yourselves in a lather. In a lava?" The Doctor joked, "No?" He looked at me.
"No. But if I might beg the wisdom of the gods before we perish," I continued, "Once this new race of creatures is complete, then what?"
He answered snidely, "My masters will follow the example of Rome itself. An almighty empire, bestriding the whole of civilisation."
"But if you've crashed, and you've got all this technology," Donna wondered, "Why don't you just go home?"
"The Heaven of Pyrovillia is gone."
"Gone?" I echoed. Miss Foster said the same thing about the breeding planet for Adipose.
"What do you mean, gone?" He demanded, "Where's it gone?"
"It was taken. Pyrovillia is gone," Lucius repeated, "But there is heat enough in this world for a new species to rise."
"Yeah, I should warn you," I breathed, "It's seventy percent water out there."
"Water can boil," he threatened, "And everything will burn, Lady of the Stars."
"Then the whole planet is at stake," I said slowly, "Doctor?"
"That's all I needed to know. Donna." He went into the escape pod with the stone circuit boards. Once Donna and I were in, I soniced the doors shut. Donna complained, "Could we be any more trapped?"
The heat increased. I guess the Pyrovile was breathing fire on us. "Little bit hot."
The Doctor worked, "See? The energy converter takes the lava, uses the power to create a fusion matrix, which welds Pyrovile to human. Now it's complete, they can convert millions."
"But can't you change it with these controls?"
"Of course we can, but don't you see? That's why the soothsayers can't see the volcano," I muttered, "There is no volcano. Vesuvius is never going to erupt. The Pyrovile are stealing all its power. They're going to use it to take over the world."
She asked, "But you can change it back?"
The Doctor looked at me. "We can invert the system, set off the volcano, and blow them up, yes," he agreed, "But, that's the choice, Donna. It's Pompeii or the world. If Pompeii is destroyed then it's not just history, it's me. I make it happen."
"We," I corrected.
"Doctor, the Pyrovile are made of rocks. Maybe they can't be blown up," Donna tried.
"Vesuvius explodes with the force of twenty four nuclear bombs," he informed, "Nothing can survive it. Certainly not us."
"Never mind us," Donna said sternly.
"Push this lever and it's over. Twenty thousand people."
The Doctor had his hands on the stone lever. With no hesitation, I placed my hand on top of his. He turned to me and stared into my eyes.
"Oh, snog on your own time!" Donna placed her hand on ours and we all pushed it.
The pod was shot out like a cannonball. We got out, wincing. I noted, "It was an escape pod." We ran into Pompeii as Vesuvius erupted.
The town was complete chaos and the hordes of people run to the beach to meet their demise. "Don't. Don't go to the beach. Don't go to the beach, go to the hills. Listen to me," Donna tried, "Don't go to the beach, it's not safe. Listen to me." She sighed when no one listened to her.
"Donna, please," I pleaded, "Just come to the TARDIS. It's too late." I smiled sadly. "I'm so sorry," I breathed heavily, "I'm so so sorry." She had tears in her eyes and we ran to catch up with the Doctor.
The villa was shaking and al the marble broke easily. Caecilius and his family cowered in the corner. He whimpered, "Gods save us, Doctor." The Doctor looked at them harshly and went inside the TARDIS. I looked at the family, but headed in there with him.
The ash stayed in our hair and we started flying. Once the noise started, Donna ran in. She cried, "You can't just leave them!"
"Don't you think I've done enough?" He snapped, "History's back in place and everyone dies."
"You've got to go back. Doctor," she begged, "I am telling you, take this thing back. It's not fair."
"No, it's not," I agreed coldly.
"But your own planet. It burned." My vision blurred.
"That's just it. Don't you see, Donna? Can't you understand?" I explained, "If I could go back and save them, then I would. But I can't. We can never go back. I can't. I just can't, I can't. I told you time and time again why this must happen, but you're so stubborn that you won't listen!"
She never wavered and whispered, "Just someone. Please. Not the whole town. Just save someone." The Doctor and I looked at each other. Without his persmission, I flew the TARDIS back to the villa.
He nodded and took my hand. We exited the TARDIS and extended a hand to Caecilius. "Come with us."
Pompeii was ruined. It burned, but the group of us waited on top of a nearby hillside. I swallowed the reminder of how I watched Gallifrey's fall. "It's never forgotten, Caecilius," I tried to comfort the family, "Oh, time will pass, men'll move on, and stories will fade."
"But one day, Pompeii will be found again. In thousands of years," the Doctor continued, "And everyone will remember you."
"What about you, Evelina?" Donna asked, "Can you see anything?"
She closed her eyes and looked troubled. "The visions have gone."
"The explosion was so powerful it cracked open a rift in time, just for a second," he explained, "That's what gave you the gift of prophecy. It echoed back into the Pyrovillian alternative. But not any more. You're free."
Metella requested, "But tell me. Who are you, Doctor? With your words, and your temple containing such size within? Who are your companions?"
"Oh, we were never here," I whispered, "Don't tell anyone."
"The great god Vulcan must be enraged. It's so volcanic. It's like some sort of volcano. All those people." As Caecilius and his family mourned, we slipped back into the TARDIS.
"Excuse me, but I'm going to shower," I mumbled. They nodded. The TARDIS led me to a room that looked vaguely familiar.
There were blue walls and a neat bed, but it looked barely used. The bathroom was the same. I stripped out of the dress and turned the water on.
Once I was done, I wrapped the towel around my body and started drying my hair. Suddenly, the door opened and the Doctor stood there.
His eyes widened and he froze. I just continued drying. I finished and faced him. "You know, the gentleman would have closed the door by now." The Doctor blushed a bit.
"Why are you here?"
"TARDIS led me here," I replied tiredly, "I take it that this is your room. Barely looked used." I gathered all my stuff. "I'll be in my room."
"You're staying?" He asked. I could decide if the tone was good or bad.
I smiled. "If I'm still invited."
"Long as you like." The Doctor smiled widely.